HARD CORE
(Source: Healthy magazine July 2019)
Your core isn't just how your abdominals look in a bikini. In reality, the abs are only a small part of the puzzle - the core comprises more than a dozen muscles that work in harmony to serve as the body's stabilising force, which allows us to bend, twist, dance and move our extremities with ease. A strong, healthy core is essential to everyday life, and when working properly it reduces back pain and prevents injuries.
When we neglect our core, as most of us unwittingly do, it will often show up as pain in another part of the body, such as the back, hips and shoulders. Professor Stuart McGill, of Waterloo University in Canada, is an expert in spine biomechanics who has been studying the relationship between the core and back for more than 30 years. ' All of our research showed the importance of the core for rehabilitating back pain and enhancing future injury and pain resilience' says McGill, who has written multiple books on the subject, including Back Mechanic.
If you can trace your pain back to the source of the core, it can be the key to unlocking a path to rehabilitation and injury prevention.
Crunches - probably the most ubiquitous of all ab exercises - can actually be the culprit in adding to back pain misery. A crunch or traditional sit-up, according to Professor McGill's research, can put a minimum of 3350 newtons (around 340kg) of compressive force onto your sine in a repeatedly bending motion. To put that in context, anything over 3330 newtons is considered to be an increased risk by the NIOSH (National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health). Not only are crunches putting unnecessary force on your spine, they aren't doing nearly enough to strengthen the core, either. A crunch might work the rectus abdominis, known as the 'six-pack', and the obliques but the actual challenge to these muscles is very low and does not justify the risk. When you look at the wide range of muscles that make up the core, you can see there are more muscles to consider and much better ways to train them
CORE DEFINITION
Speak to different experts, and they will vary on definitions of what muscle groups comprise the core - some argue the pelvic floor is an important component as well, which might sound familiar if you've ever been in a yoga class and heard a teacher call for you to engage your 'mula bandha' or root lock, contracting the pelvic floor to help with stability in balancing postures.
Much of the core cannot be seen by the naked eye. The deepest ab muscles, the transverse abdominis, wrap around your spine for protection and stability. Other spinal muscles play a big role in core health such as the erector spinae, three muscles that run from your lower back to neck; directly under this is the multifidus, found along the vertebral column, which is responsible for spinal rotation and extension. There's also the quadratus lumborum, an important core muscle either side of the lumbar spine, which plays a key role in our ability to walk.
The hips and glutes are also part of the core, believe it or not. The hip flexors (which include psoas major, illiacus, rectus femoris, pectineus and sartorious), the gluteus medius and minimus (set at the side of the hips), the hip adductors and gluteus maximus,hamstrings, and piriformis (at the top of the thigh bones) are all important core muscles.
When these muscles contract, it creates a stiffness, which stabilises the body. 'The spine is a flexible rod. This enables the movements needed to dance, throw, play golf, and have sex. But all of these tasks involve small compressive forces,' says Professor McGill. 'No engineer would design a flexible rod, hold it upright like a spine, and then apply a compressive load - the rod would collapse. The muscles of the core activate and stiffen the rod (spine), acting as a girdle to prevent it buckling.'
Mums picking a baby up from a crib, yoga masters and powerlifters will all have different core fitness levels and stiffness needs, but each activity will require sufficient stability. We tend to think of having a 'stiff back' as a bad thing, but stiffness has its place. 'Back pain is often associated with micro-movements that occur at spine joints that have lost normal stiffness due to injury - just like a knee joint gets micro-movements that trigger pain if the ligaments are damaged,' explains Professor McGill. The body uses stiffness to control movements and provide mechanical integrity to joints.
As experts like McGill emphasise, it's not just core strength that's vital, but core control, which can reduce and even eliminate pain. By conditioning and toning the core muscles, we allow for a resilient spine that aids movement, protects our internal organs and helps us get the most out of our workouts. If the long list of muscles comprising the core seems daunting when you think about keeping them in shape, the good news is there are many exercises that can safely power up multiple muscles groups. For example: Plank, Side Plank, Superman, and the modified curl up.
I have incorporated the main core strengthening and control exercises into my video CORE VITALITY.
It's about more than a six-pack - a strong core provides stability for everything from everyday tasks to peak athletic performance. Professor Stuart McGill explains how to ensure yours is up to the job.